Monday, March 17, 2014

Lenten Meal Plan Linkup, Week #3: Easy Spinach and Goat Cheese Pizza

It's already the third week of Lent, and our collection of meatless meals is growing nicely. If you haven't had a chance yet, be sure to check out the other recipes at Beth Anne's Best and Two O's Plus More. You can find the whole bunch of recipes we have shared so far (plus lots of others!) on the Meatless Meals Pinterest board. We'd love to have you link up your favorites, too.

Today, I'm sharing a quick and easy recipe that tastes like it took a lot more work than it actually did. I think of it as a shortcut meal because of how easy it is to prepare. It's great for a "date night in" after we have put our kids to bed and want to eat some tasty grownup food. (It works for children, too, if your kids happen to like goat cheese- mine do.)

I adapted this from a recipe made by Sam Zien on the show Eat This! (You can find the original recipe here.)

What you'll need:

a premade thin pizza crust (or your favorite pizza crust recipe, already made). I usually use a premade crust for this one, because having to make the crust and wait for it to rise kind of defeats the purpose of this recipe for me.

baby spinach...about 2/3 cup

mushrooms, 1/2 pound, sliced- whatever kind are your favorite. Shitake? Cremini? We like to use the button ones for the kids- they don't have quite as much flavor, though.

goat cheese, 1/2 cup (softened)- not the crumbles.

garlic, 2 cloves, minced (1 tsp of the already-minced kind you keep in the refrigerator for shortcuts)

olive oil, 2 tsp

What you'll do:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. In a large saucepan or skillet, saute the garlic and mushrooms in oil until mushrooms are soft.

Add the spinach, stirring in until wilted. (The original recipe adds 2 tablespoons of water here and covers the pan until the spinach is wilted. I usually just stir it in a bit at a time until it is all wilted down.)

Remove the pan from the heat. Spread the goat cheese evenly over the pizza crust. Top with the spinach, mushrooms and garlic.

Place the pizza crust directly on the oven rack and heat for 10-15 minutes (depending on how crusty you like it).

Easy as can be- and fast! It will be ready before you manage to get the wine open and poured. (Or almost.)

Also, check back tomorrow- I'll be sharing a Lent-inspired music playlist with you (and the prompts for the #HolyLens project, week 3, in case you haven't seen them on Instagram yet). It's not too late to join us.